Terms of Service

Welcome to Plum. We’re excited to help you on your journey of co-owning a home! Please follow our house rules as you use our site.

This policy was published on January 15, 2022.

Accepting These Terms
Your Privacy
Your Account with Plum
Your Content
Your use of Our Services
Termination
Warranties and Limitation of Liability (or the Things You Can’t Sue Us For)
Indemnification (or What Happens If You Get Us Sued)
Disputes with Other Users
Disputes With Plum
Changes to the Terms
Some Finer Legal Points
Contact Information

1. Accepting These Terms

This document and the other documents that we reference below make up our house rules, or what we officially call our Terms of Use (the “Terms” for short). The Terms are a legally binding contract between you and Plum CoOwnership, Inc., a Delaware Corporation. We’ll refer to Plum CoOwnership, Inc., and all of its subsidiaries collectively as “Plum.”

Please note that Section 10. Disputes with Plum, contain an arbitration clause and class action waiver. By agreeing to the Terms, you agree to resolve all disputes through binding individual arbitration, which means that you waive any right to have those disputes decided by a judge or jury, and that you waive your right to participate in class actions, class arbitrations, or representative actions.

This contract sets out your rights and responsibilities when you use Plum.com and the other services provided by Plum (we’ll refer to all of these collectively as our “Services”), so please read it carefully. By using any of our Services (even just browsing one of our websites), you’re agreeing to the Terms. If you don’t agree with the Terms, you may not use our Services. Agree with us? Great, read on!

2. Your Privacy

We know your personal information is important to you, and it’s important to us. Our Privacy Policy details how your information is used when you use our Services. By using our Services, you’re also agreeing that we can process your information in the ways set out in the Privacy Policy, so please read it here.

Both Plum and our partners process users’ personal information (for example, name, email address, phone numbers and address) and are therefore considered separate and independent data controllers of users’ personal information. That means that each party is responsible for the personal information it processes in providing the Services. For example, if a partner accidentally discloses a user’s name and email address, the partner, not Plum, will be responsible for that unauthorized disclosure.

If, however, Plum is found to be joint data controllers of users’ personal information, and if Plum is sued, fined, or otherwise incurs expenses because of something that you did as a joint data controller of user personal information, you agree to indemnify Plum for the expenses it occurs in connection with your processing of user personal information. See Section 9. Indemnification (or What Happens If You Get Us Sued) below for more information about your indemnification obligations to Plum.

3. Your Account with Plum

You’ll need to create an account with Plum to use our Services. Here are a few rules about accounts with Plum:

A. You must be 18 years or older to use our Services. Minors under 18 are only permitted to use our Services through an account owned by a parent or legal guardian with their appropriate permission and under their direct supervision. You are responsible for any and all account activity conducted by a minor on your account.

B. Be honest with us. Provide accurate information about yourself. It’s prohibited to use false information or impersonate another person or company through your account.

C. Choose an appropriate name. If you decide to not have your full name serve as the name associated with your account, you may not use language that is offensive, vulgar, infringes someone’s intellectual property rights, or otherwise violates the Terms.

D. You’re responsible for your account. You’re solely responsible for any activity on your account. If you’re sharing an account with other people, then the person whose financial information is on the account will ultimately be responsible for all activity. If you’re registering as a business entity, you personally guarantee that you have the authority to agree to the Terms on behalf of the business. Also, your accounts are not transferable.

E. Protect your password. As we mentioned above, you’re solely responsible for any activity on your account, so it’s important to keep your account password secure.

F. Let’s be clear about our relationship. These Terms don’t create any agency, partnership, joint venture, employment, or franchisee relationship between you and Plum.

4. Your Content

Content that you post using our Services is your content (so, let’s refer to it as “Your Content”). We don’t make any claim to it, which includes anything you post using our Services (like names, profile pictures, photos, descriptions, reviews, comments, videos, usernames, etc.).

A. Responsibility for Your Content. You understand that you are solely responsible for Your Content. You represent that you have all necessary rights to Your Content and that you’re not infringing or violating any third party’s rights by posting it.

B. Permission to Use Your Content. By posting Your Content through our Services, you grant Plum a license to use it. We don’t claim any ownership to Your Content, but we have your permission to use it to help Plum function and grow. That way, we won’t infringe any rights you have in Your Content and we can use it to help you. For example, you acknowledge and agree Plum may use information you’ve entered into our platform to coordinate with other co-owners that you intend to buy a home with, or with service providers that you may use to manage your co-owned home.

C. Rights You Grant Plum. (Here’s the legalese version of the last section). By posting Your Content, you grant Plum a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sub-licensable, perpetual license to use, display, edit, modify, reproduce, distribute, store, and prepare derivative works of Your Content. This allows us to provide the Services, in any formats and through any channels, including across any Plum Services, our partners, or third-party website or advertising medium. You agree not to assert any moral rights or rights of publicity against us for using Your Content. You also recognize our legitimate interest in using it, in accordance with the scope of this license, to the extent Your Content contains any personal information.
That sounds like a lot, but it’s necessary for us to keep Plum going. Consider these examples: if you upload a photo or video of a listing on your Plum page, we have permission to display it to users, and we can resize or enhance it so it looks good to a user using our service on their mobile device; if you post a description in English, we can translate it into French so a user in Paris can explore co-ownership with you; and if you post a beautiful photo or video of your co-owned house, we can feature it – often along with your name and picture– on our homepage, in one of our blogs or even on a billboard to help promote Plum.

D. Reporting Unauthorized Content. Plum has great respect for intellectual property rights, and is committed to following appropriate legal procedures to remove infringing content from the Services. If content that you own or have rights to has been posted to the Services without your permission and you want it removed, please contact us. If Your Content is alleged to infringe another person’s intellectual property, we will take appropriate action, such as disabling it if we receive proper notice or terminating your account if you are found to be a repeat infringer. We’ll notify you if any of that happens.

E. Inappropriate, False, or Misleading Content. This should be common sense, but there are certain types of content we don’t want posted on Plum’s Services (for legal reasons or otherwise). You agree that you will not post any content that is abusive, threatening, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, or otherwise offensive or in violation of any part of our Terms. You also agree not to post any content that is false and misleading or uses the Services in a manner that is fraudulent or deceptive.

5. Your Use of Our Services

License to Use Our Services. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and revocable license to use our Services—subject to the Terms and the following restrictions in particular:

A. Don’t Use Our Services to Break the Law. You agree that you will not violate any laws in connection with your use of the Services. This includes any local, state, federal, and international laws that may apply to you. For example, it’s your responsibility to obtain any permits or licenses required; you may not buy or sell anything that violates any laws, and you may not engage in fraud (including false claims or infringement notices), theft, anti-competitive conduct, threatening conduct, or any other unlawful acts or crimes against Plum, another Plum user, or a third party.

B. Pay Your Bills. You are responsible for paying all fees that you owe to Plum.

C. Don’t Steal Our Stuff. You agree not to crawl, scrape, or spider any page of the Services or to reverse engineer or attempt to obtain the source code of the Services.

D. Don’t Try to Harm Our Systems. You agree not to interfere with or try to disrupt our Services, for example by distributing a virus or other harmful computer code.

E. Follow Our Trademark Policy. The name “Plum” and the other Plum marks, phrases, logos, and designs that we use in connection with our Services (the Plum Trademarks), are trademarks, service marks, or trade dress of Plum in the US and other countries.

F. Share Your Ideas. We love your suggestions and ideas! They can help us improve your experience and our Services. Any unsolicited ideas or other materials you submit to Plum (not including Your Content or items you sell through our Services) are considered non-confidential and non-proprietary to you. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sub-licensable, perpetual license to use and publish those ideas and materials for any purpose, without compensation to you.

G. Talk to Us Online. From time to time, Plum will provide you with certain legal information in writing. We can send you information electronically (such as by email) instead of mailing you paper copies (it’s better for the environment), and your electronic agreement is the same as your signature on paper.

H. We Are Not Lawyers, and This is Not Legal Advice. Plum provides a platform for legal information and self-help as it pertains to the act of buying and owning a home together with other people. The information provided by Plum, along with the content of our Services related to legal matters (“Legal Information”) is provided for your private use and does not constitute legal advice. We do not review any information you provide us for legal accuracy or sufficiency, draw legal conclusions, provide opinions about your selection of forms, or apply the law to the facts of your situation.

Legal Information provided by Plum through its Service is not a substitute for legal advice from a qualified attorney licensed to practice in an appropriate jurisdiction. Communications between you and Plum may not be protected as privileged communications under the attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine.

Your use of the Services does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and Plum or any of its employees or representatives. Unless you are otherwise represented by an attorney, you represent yourself in any legal matter you undertake through our Services.

6. Termination

Termination By You. We’d hate to see you go, but you may terminate your account with Plum at any time from your account settings. Terminating your account will not affect the availability of some of Your Content that you posted through the Services prior to termination. Oh, and you’ll still have to pay any outstanding bills.

Termination By Plum. We may terminate or suspend your account (and any accounts Plum determines are related to your account) and your access to the Services should we have reason to believe you, your Content, or your use of the Services violate our Terms. If we do so, it’s important to understand that you don’t have a contractual or legal right to continue to use our Services. Generally, Plum will notify you that your account has been terminated or suspended, unless you’ve repeatedly violated our Terms or we have legal or regulatory reasons preventing us from notifying you. If you or Plum terminate your account, you may lose any information associated with your account, including Your Content.

We May Discontinue the Services. Plum reserves the right to change, suspend, or discontinue any of the Services at any time, for any reason, including those laid out in Plum’s policies under these Terms of Use. We will not be liable to you for the effect that any changes to the Services may have on you.

Survival. The Terms will remain in effect even after your access to the Service is terminated, or your use of the Service ends.

7. Warranties and Limitation of Liability (or the Things You Can’t Sue Us For)

House(s) You Purchase. You understand that Plum does not manufacture, maintain, sell or inspect any of the houses represented through our Services. We provide the venue; the houses in our marketplaces are listed, represented, described and bought directly by independent users, so Plum cannot and does not make any warranties about the quality, safety, legality, or compliance of any house. Any legal claim related to a house you purchase must be brought directly against the seller of the item. You release Plum from any claims related to property bought or sold through our Services, including for defects, misrepresentations by other users, or items that caused physical injury.

People You Buy Homes With. You understand that Plum doesn’t inspect, certify or vet other users who use the Services. We provide a venue for users to join together for the purposes of buying a house together; the users of our Services are individuals who are legally responsible for their own actions, so Plum cannot and does not make any warranties about the accuracy or truthfulness of their representations and communications through our Services. You release Plum from any claims related to the interactions with other users, including for financial harm, impact to one’s credit ratings, mental anguish or personal suffering that may result from such misrepresentations or falsehoods.

Content You Access. We make no representations concerning any content posted by users through the Services. Plum is not responsible for the accuracy, copyright compliance, legality, or decency of content posted by users that you accessed through the Services. You release us from all liability relating to that content.

People You Interact With. You can use the Services to interact with other individuals. However, you understand that we do not screen users of our Services, and you release us from all liability relating to your interactions with other users. Please be careful and exercise caution and good judgment in all interactions with others.

Third-Party Services. Our Services may contain links to third-party websites or services that we don’t own or control (for example, links to Twitter, and Instagram). You may also need to use a third party’s product or service in order to use some of our Services. When you access these third-party products or services, you do so at your own risk. The third parties may require you to accept their own terms of use. Plum is not a party to those agreements; they are solely between you and the third party.

WARRANTIES. PLUM IS DEDICATED TO MAKING OUR SERVICES THE BEST THEY CAN BE, BUT WE’RE NOT PERFECT AND SOMETIMES THINGS CAN GO WRONG. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT OUR SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND WITHOUT ANY KIND OF WARRANTY (EXPRESS OR IMPLIED). WE ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMING ANY WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AS WELL AS ANY WARRANTIES IMPLIED BY A COURSE OF PERFORMANCE, COURSE OF DEALING, OR USAGE OF TRADE.

WE DO NOT GUARANTEE THAT: (I) THE SERVICES WILL BE SECURE OR AVAILABLE AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME OR LOCATION; (II) ANY DEFECTS OR ERRORS WILL BE CORRECTED; (III) THE SERVICES WILL BE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL MATERIALS; OR (IV) THE RESULTS OF USING THE SERVICES WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS. YOU USE THE SERVICES SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

LIABILITY LIMITS. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NEITHER PLUM, NOR OUR EMPLOYEES OR DIRECTORS SHALL BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY LOSSES OR FINAINCIAL IMPACTS OR FOR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICES OR THESE TERMS. IN NO EVENT SHALL PLUM’S AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ANY DAMAGES EXCEED THE GREATER OF ONE HUNDRED ($100) US DOLLARS (USD) OR THE AMOUNT YOU PAID PLUM IN THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

8. Indemnification (or What Happens If You Get Us Sued)

We hope this never happens, but if Plum gets sued because of something that you did, you agree to defend and indemnify us. That means you’ll defend Plum (including any of our employees) and hold us harmless from any legal claim or demand (including reasonable attorney’s fees) that arises from your actions, your use (or misuse) of our Services, your breach of the Terms, or you or your account’s infringement of someone else’s rights.

We reserve the right to handle our legal defense however we see fit, even if you are indemnifying us, in which case you agree to cooperate with us so we can execute our strategy.

9. Disputes with Other Users

If you find yourself in a dispute with another user of Plum’s Services or a third party, we encourage you to contact the other party and try to resolve the dispute amicably.

Plum will attempt to help you resolve disputes in good faith and based solely on our interpretation of our policies, in our sole discretion; we will not make judgments regarding legal issues or claims. Plum has no obligation to resolve any disputes.

You release Plum from any claims, demands, and damages arising out of disputes with other users or parties.

10. Disputes With Plum

If you’re upset with us, let us know, and hopefully we can resolve your issue. But if we can’t, then these rules will govern any legal dispute involving our Services:

A. Governing Law. The Terms are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, without regard to its conflict of laws rules, and the laws of the United States of America. These laws will apply no matter where in the world you live, but if you live outside of the United States, you may be entitled to the protection of the mandatory consumer protection provisions of your local consumer protection law.

B. Arbitration. This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of North Carolina. All disputes arising in connection with this Agreement shall, to the extent possible, be settled amicably by prompt good faith negotiations between the representatives of the parties. In the event the parties cannot reach an amicable settlement within seven (7) days of the commencement of discussions, the dispute shall be finally settled by binding arbitration. Any such arbitration proceeding shall be held under the then current Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association in Raleigh, North Carolina.

For any actions not subject to arbitration or mediation, you and Plum agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of a state or federal court located in Raleigh, NC if your contract is with Plum CoOwnership, Inc.

E. Government Exception. If you are a government agent or entity in the United States using the Services in your official capacity, and you are legally unable to agree to the clauses in this section, then those clauses do not apply to you. In that case, the Terms and any action related to the Terms will be governed by the laws of the United States (without reference to conflict of laws) and, in the absence of federal law and to the extent permitted under federal law, the laws of the State of North Carolina.

F. Modifications. If we make any changes to this “Disputes with Plum” section after the date you last accepted the Terms, those changes will not apply to any claims filed in a legal proceeding against Plum prior to the date the changes became effective. Plum will notify you of substantive changes to the “Disputes with Plum” section at least 30 days prior to the date the change will become effective. If you do not agree to the modified terms, you may send Plum a written notification (including email) or close your account within those 30 days. By rejecting a modified term or permanently closing your account, you agree to arbitrate any disputes between you and Plum in accordance with the provisions of this “Disputes with Plum” section as of the date you last accepted the Terms, including any changes made prior to your rejection. If you reopen your closed account or create a new account, you agree to be bound by the current version of the Terms.

11. Changes to the Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we believe that the changes are material, we’ll definitely let you know by posting the changes through the Services and/or sending you an email or message about the changes. That way you can decide whether you want to continue using the Services. Changes will be effective upon the posting of the changes unless otherwise specified. You are responsible for reviewing and becoming familiar with any changes. Your use of the Services following the changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms.

12. Some Finer Legal Points

The Terms, including all of the policies that make up the Terms, supersede any other agreement between you and Plum regarding the Services. If any part of the Terms is found to be unenforceable, that part will be limited to the minimum extent necessary so that the Terms will otherwise remain in full force and effect. Our failure to enforce any part of the Terms is not a waiver of our right to later enforce that or any other part of the Terms. We may assign any of our rights and obligations under the Terms.

13. Contact Information

If you have any questions about the Terms, please email us at legal@plum.com.